Posted on 02/10/2008 9:22:11 PM PST by neverdem
USING an artificial, no-calorie sweetener rather than sugar may make it tougher, not easier, to lose weight, US researchers said today.
Scientists at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, studied rats that were fed food with the artificial sweetener saccharin and rats fed food with glucose, a natural sugar.
In comparison to rats given yogurt sweetened with glucose, those that ate yogurt sweetened with saccharin went on to consume more calories and put on more weight and body fat.
The researchers said sweet foods may prompt the body to get ready to take in a lot of calories, but when sweetness in the form of artificial sweeteners is not followed by a large amount of calories, the body gets confused, which may lead to eating more or expending less energy than normal.
"The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity than would consuming the same food sweetened with high-calorie sugar,'' Purdue researchers Susan Swithers and Terry Davidson wrote in the journal, Behavioural Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association.
"Such an outcome may seem counterintuitive, if not an anathema, to human clinical researchers and health care practitioners who have long recommended the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners as a means of weight control.''
Other artificial sweeteners such as aspartame that also taste sweet but do not lead to the delivery of calories may have similar effects, the researchers said.
"Animals may use sweet taste to predict the caloric contents of food. Eating sweet noncaloric substances may degrade this predictive relationship,'' the researchers wrote.
"With the growing use of noncaloric sweeteners in the current food environment, millions of people are being exposed to sweet tastes that are not associated with caloric or nutritive consequences,'' the researchers added.
The...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
At first, I was inclined to agree with the comments on that thread that the correlation with obese folks was just a coincidence because the obese wanted to avoid getting bigger. Now, I'm not so sure about it. It's not wise trying to fool mother nature.
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Since most “sugar” now is HFCS, I think I’ll be sticking with aspartame.
I’ve been thinking about this. I drink a lot of them. I stopped eating in the evening over a week ago. I’ve probably cut a fourth to half of my calories. I have lost ...nada.
For awhile I was giving my kids the artificially sweetened waters. We stopped the whole artificial sweetner when my daughter’s neurologist said that it can lower seizure thresholds. Regular sugar does not lower seizure thresholds.
Now, my kids just limit their soda intake, and they drink lots of water.
Ping for later.....
Caloric reduction is good. If you want to live longer.
I’m not a dietiican, but I would think that many studies had been done on what the body does (produce insulin, etc) when sweets/sugars/carbs are consumed.
I could understand why the body gets tricked into a drive to consume and reduce calories/activity when simple carbohydrates are eaten.
Before you decide to “stick with aspartame”, I think you should “google” it first. Then decide. It is nasty stuff.
I’ve noticed this phenomenon personally. Diet soda is just empty crap that confuses your body. That being said, I hate how these people report the findings.
It can take a while for your body to adjust to the lower intake.
I’ve tastes artificial sugar one time, and never again. I can’t stand diet soda. I’ve also never weighed more than 135 soaking wet.
Hmmm...could it be?
I saw this article copied in our Sunday paper.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/06/healthscience/05symp.php
“Researchers have found a correlation between drinking diet soda and metabolic syndrome — the collection of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes that include abdominal obesity, high cholesterol and blood glucose levels — and elevated blood pressure.”
Of course if the researchers depended on self-reporting, that opens up a whole new can of worms. They need to do some testing under controlled conditions.
Eat what you ate when you were skinny and never thought about it, but substitute Splenda for sugar, and you will be better off. Eat like a pig, and splenda won't help.
This is a fine example of one of the sloppiest written, most confused piece of reporting I have ever seen. At first, it says thet art. sweeteners causes MORE eating, then later it says “greater body weight gain with THE SAME FOOD. The author is confused.
I dropped 100 pounds several years ago by cutting calories. A big part of that was cutting our HFCS.
“Splenda, on the other hand, is a gift from the gods. It takes very much like real sugar but cannot be utilized by the body and passes harmlessly through.”
I like Splenda, it is the only sugar sub I’ve seen that did NOT taste like laundry detergent(don’t ask) and it takes almost no time getting used to it.
I like splenda quite a bit.
I generally avoid processed foods and artificial sweeteners.
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